Concerns About Sony's Religious Intolerance

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by tompe

All scientific claims (non analytical claims) are unprovable.

Be careful telling that to a working scientist, most likely they'll go ballistic.

There are chunk of "faith" all over scientific thinking, but it's a non-gnostic faith. Think of all the physicists, for example, who have been try to create a "Theory Of Everything" (a total unified physics theory) even though such a possibility was mathmatically disproven in 1931 by Kurt Godel.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Be careful telling that to a working scientist, most likely they'll go ballistic.

I disagree - the fact that scientific claims are unprovable is a fundamental tenet of science. We're talking science here, not mathematics.

What science aims to do is to develop models that have predictive usefulness - fundamental "truth" (if such a thing exists) isn't part of the deal.

/JB

[HarryT]

A "GUT" (Grand Unified Theory - aka "theory of everything") is a theory which "unifies" the four "fundamental forces" (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) with quantum mechanics. Godel's work certainly does not prove (to the best of my knowledge) that this cannot be done. His work was more concerned with showing that any system of mathematics had to have axioms, if I recall correctly.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A "GUT" (Grand Unified Theory - aka "theory of everything") is a theory which "unifies" the four "fundamental forces" (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) with quantum mechanics. Godel's work certainly does not prove (to the best of my knowledge) that this cannot be done. His work was more concerned with showing that any system of mathematics had to have axioms, if I recall correctly.

Some physicists have used Gödel's work to suggest that it cannot be done:

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/strings02/dirac/hawking/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_...teness_theorem

though they have not done so without refute.

Cheers,
Marc

[tompe]

Originally Posted by jbjb

What science aims to do is to develop models that have predictive usefulness - fundamental "truth" (if such a thing exists) isn't part of the deal.

A model can of course correspond perfectly with reality but you can never prove (mathematically) that this is the case. And I an often a realist and think that we should aim for theories that gets closer to the reality.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

Some physicists have used Gödel's work to suggest that it cannot be done:

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/strings02/dirac/hawking/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_...teness_theorem

though they have not done so without refute.

Cheers,
Marc

Hmmm - interesting.

I think, though, that what that is saying is that one cannot have a theory which "completely represents reality". That's not what physics aims to do - physicists generally aim for the lesser goal of producing a theory which can be used to make useful predictions about the "real world".

Eg, Newton's laws of motion are a perfectly acceptable way of thinking about the motion of objects through space in the overwhelming majority of situations and can be used to make highly-accurate predictions of planetary motion, for the most part. In "extreme" situations, General Relativity provides a closer approximation to "reality", but even it cannot be the "whole truth", since it is a "field theory" and completely inconsistent with quantum mechanics.

There's no reason that one couldn't have a GUT which satisfactorily explains the relationship between the fundamental forces and QM, whilst accepting that it does not represent the "ultimate truth" - the "reality" of the way the universe works. That "ultimate truth" may well be unattainable, but that doesn't mean that practically useful theories cannot be obtained.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Hmmm - interesting.

I think, though, that what that is saying is that one cannot have a theory which "completely represents reality".
...

I believe that is addressed in the second link, where it states that "[Theory of Everything] definitional discrepancy may explain some of the disagreement among researchers", seemingly eyeing what "physics aims to do" and what "physicists...aim for". In light of the named persons involved in this "discrepancy", defining a "Theory of Everything" as an "ultimate truth" and one that "completely represents reality" is given to me as credible a consideration as that of a "practical useful theory" that doesn't completely represent reality.

Cheers,
Marc

[Greg Anos]

Godel's theorem states that for any system of mathematics, there will be questions definable in that mathematics that cannot be answered by that mathematics. Since all GUTs are describable only in mathematics, no matter how the results can be applied, it can't describe everything, inherently.

But I only use this as a example of "faith" in science. I like to use physics for examples, because "faith" is so strong there. I could have used C as an absolute constant as an example, instead, but that would cause ever more of a conudrum among the "faithful".....

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Godel's theorem states that for any system of mathematics, there will be questions definable in that mathematics that cannot be answered by that mathematics. Since all GUTs are describable only in mathematics, no matter how the results can be applied, it can't describe everything, inherently.

But I only use this as a example of "faith" in science. I like to use physics for examples, because "faith" is so strong there. I could have used C as an absolute constant as an example, instead, but that would cause ever more of a conudrum among the "faithful".....

You're completely misisng the point about science. The search for a GUT is not the search for something which violates Godel's theorem - it is simply (!) an attempt to unify the various models that are currently useful at different scales.

There is no "faith" involved here -all science says is that the current models are those of which we are aware which have the best predictive ability. Nothing more, nothing less.

/JB

[DixieGal]

GUT is a new term to me. Is this what I've learned as The Unified Field Theory?

My gut is rumbling - time for bfast cereal!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

(click)

Just thought I'd check in on you guys. Nice job geeking this thread. Carry on.

snif, snif

Oh, guys, maybe you should check the ventilation in here, but I think I smell a few brain cells burning. Ta!

(slam!)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

GUT is a new term to me. Is this what I've learned as The Unified Field Theory?

My gut is rumbling - time for bfast cereal!

Yep, they started calling it the "Grand Unified Theory" (GUT) because "Field" was too limiting...

[slayda]

IMO neither atheism nor theism is about provability but about belief. Theists don't prove the existence of God and to try to do so, for them, wouldn't make any sense. Nor do atheists prove the nonexistence of God. They just believe. Now they may use religion or science in establishing a rationale for their belief but no proof is necessary for them even though they may accept their religion or science as proof for themselves. They both have a positive belief about the existence of God.

The agnostic only has negative belief, i.e. he doesn't know whether there is or is not a God. A statement such as, "I don't believe there is a God." does not equate to the statement, "I believe there is no god."

Again, IMO, the agnostic is open to new evidence where the atheist and the theist have already made their conclusions and only seek substantiation, if that.

[HarryT]

A unified field theory unifies fields (obviously ). Eg, there is a theory which unifies electromagnetism with the "weak nuclear force" - that was done about 20 years ago. The "Holy Grail" of modern physics is to unify "fields" (that is, things like gravity, electromagnetism, etc) with quantum mechanics. You've probably heard of things like "string theory" - that is an attempt to do that, but without any real success thus far. A theory which succeeded in unifying all the "fundamental forces" with QM would be a "Grand Unified Theory", or GUT for short.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by jbjb

You're completely misisng the point about science. The search for a GUT is not the search for something which violates Godel's theorem - it is simply (!) an attempt to unify the various models that are currently useful at different scales.

There is no "faith" involved here -all science says is that the current models are those of which we are aware which have the best predictive ability. Nothing more, nothing less.

/JB

Pardon, but what would be left unexplained in physics? The whole point of a GUT is to create one theory to explain all aspects of physics. Godel's theorem clearly implies that it can't be done, as there will always be questions unanswerable. I have no problem with Unification Theories, just the idea of a all-encompassing GUT.... But the belief that there can be a GUT, is an act of "faith".